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- India’s ace shuttler Pusarla Venkata Sindhu won the silver medal in women’s singles badminton at the Rio Olympics. In the final match, Sindhu lost to Spain’s Carolina Marín (World No.1). With this, Sindhu became the first Indian woman to win a silver medal in the Olympics. Besides, she also became the fifth woman player from India to win a medal in the Olympics.
- India ranks 39th in terms of fixed broadband adoption in the list of 53 Asia Pacific countries, according to the recently released report, ‘State of ICT in Asia and the Pacific 2016: Uncovering the Widening Broadband Divide’. It was published by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). India ranks lower than countries such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh in fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in 2015. Hong Kong, New Zealand, Japan, Macao, Australia and Singapore topped the list.
- The meeting of the BRICS women parliamentarian’s forum has begun in Jaipur, Rajasthan. BRICS is the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The two day meeting was inaugurated by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. A total of 43 delegates from member countries are participating in the meeting.
- India’s Border Security Force and their counterparts, the Pakistan Rangers, posted along the international border, have decided to add four additional telephone lines for enhanced communication, up from the 12 existing ones now.
- The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) has acquired the surviving footage of a 1919 Indian silent film, Bilwamangal, from the Cinematheque Francaise in France. The acquisition is significant for the NFAI as it is implementing the National Film Heritage Mission to preserve national cinematic heritage. NFAI will be returning the gesture by giving Cinematheque Francaise a digital copy of another silent film, Jamai Babu (1931), directed by Kalipada Das under a mutual exchange policy.
- World Humanitarian Day (WHD) was observed on the 19th of August to recognize work of humanitarian personnel and those who have lost their lives working for humanitarian causes. The theme this year was ‘One Humanity’, highlighting the importance of shared human experiences that bind people together across divides.
- Tech giant Intel has unveiled Project Alloy, a device that creates ‘merged reality’. Project Alloy is a headset that uses the RealSense technology to enable people to use their hands to interact with elements of the virtual world without using cables to connect computer.
- India has ranked 66th in the 2016 Global Innovation Index (GII). In this edition, India has jumped up by 15 spots from 81st position in 2015 GII. The annual index was released by France-based international business school INSEAD and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations. The index ranks world economies since 2007 according to their innovation capabilities using more than 80 indicators.
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